The Stratux Arcade: 44 free aviation games for your hangar, club or EAA chapter

October 14, 2026 · 8 min read

Every pilot knows the feeling: the weather's down, the plane's in annual, and the hangar has turned into a coffee-and-stories kind of day. The Stratux Arcade is for those days. It's a free collection of 44 aviation games that run in your browser, on a phone, tablet or laptop. There's no sign-up and nothing to install.

You'll find a daily aviation Wordle, retro arcade cabinets, ground-school quizzes, a few dial-up-era BBS door games, and a live quiz night you can run at your EAA chapter or flying club. Here's how it came about, where to start, and how to bring it to your hangar.

Play the Stratux Arcade

Why we built an aviation arcade

The arcade started as a joke for the hangar and kept growing. Pilots love a daily ritual (the preflight, the weather check, the logbook entry), so a daily puzzle felt natural. Aviation also has its own sense of humor: the goose that ruins your approach, the examiner who asks the one question you didn't study, the 4 a.m. show time. Those ended up in the games.

There's a little learning in nearly all of them. SQUAWKLE shows a one-line definition for every answer. SIGNAL PATH teaches how ADS-B traffic and weather actually reach your cockpit. TOWER HUNT puts you on a map of real FAA ADS-B ground stations. They're not a substitute for your instructor or the books, but they make a good lunch break.

Where to start: five games to try first

  1. SQUAWKLE, the daily aviation Wordle. One five-letter pilot word, six tries.
  2. HOLDING PATTERN, a daily connections puzzle. Sort 16 aviation words into four groups.
  3. CLEARED TO LAND, a retro air traffic control game. Draw the paths and keep everyone apart.
  4. SIGNAL PATH, an ADS-B puzzle game in 32 levels, from air-to-air to TIS-B.
  5. THE OSHKOSH TRAIL, the classic trail game with the dysentery swapped for carb ice.

How to play: four quick guides

SQUAWKLE: the daily aviation Wordle

Type a five-letter aviation word and press Enter. Green means the right letter in the right spot, amber means the letter is in the word but somewhere else, and grey means it isn't in the word. You have six tries.

  • Answers are words you meet in the cockpit and the hangar, like PITOT, FLARE, NOTAM and VIRGA.
  • Hard mode makes you reuse every hint you've uncovered. Color-blind mode swaps in orange and blue.
  • Everyone gets the same word each day, so you can share your grid in the club group chat without spoiling it.
  • Finish the daily puzzle to unlock unlimited practice. Too easy? Try QUAD SQUAWKLE: four words at once in nine guesses.

HOLDING PATTERN: find the four groups

Sixteen words, four hidden groups of four. Tap four words that share a connection and press Submit.

  • Each wrong guess burns one of your four airplanes. Run out and you land short.
  • ONE AWAY means three of your four belong together, so you're close.
  • Many words fit more than one group (V-speeds, the phonetic alphabet, airport signs and so on), but only one complete solution works. Use Shuffle when you're stuck.

CLEARED TO LAND: work the radar scope

Drag from an airplane to draw its path, and end the path on a runway lined up with the green approach arrows.

  • Jets and GA planes land on runways, helicopters use the H pad, and seaplanes need the water lane.
  • Check the wind sock: only the active runway accepts landings.
  • A red ring means two aircraft are too close. If they touch, the game's over.
  • Streaks of clean landings earn bonus points, and the daily challenge has its own board. You'll have new respect for the voice on the radio.

SIGNAL PATH: learn how ADS-B reaches your cockpit

You fly the orange box, an airplane carrying a Stratux receiver. Build ground stations, change altitude, move to another waypoint or change your ADS-B Out until every required aircraft shows up on your display.

  • Chapter 1 covers air-to-air reception on 1090 and 978 MHz; chapter 2 ground stations and FIS-B weather; chapter 3 ADS-R and TIS-B; chapter 4 terrain, altitude and distance.
  • Finish in par moves for three stars. A new daily puzzle appears every day, and each one is checked by a solver to make sure it can be solved.
  • Want the real-world version? Read our pilot's guide to how ADS-B works.

Fun finds around the arcade

  • The final boss is an examiner. In LEGEND OF THE RED TAIL, a tribute to 1990s BBS door games, you fight gremlins and geese on your way to THE CHECKRIDE.
  • The Fisk arrival is in there. THE OSHKOSH TRAIL ends with an arcade-style approach into AirVenture. Watch your carb heat on the way.
  • Paper airplane to Space Shuttle. FLEET MERGE is a merge puzzle that climbs all the way up the aircraft ladder.
  • An airline career on an FMS. ACARS: CAREER MODE is a choose-your-own-adventure played on an airliner's CDU, with multiple career endings to find. THE COMMUTE is a push-your-luck jumpseat game, complete with a split-flap board and a snoring crash pad.
  • Steady hands only. BUILD-A-STRATUX has you tweezer nine parts into the case without touching the edges, then power it on.
  • Badges for the way you fly. Your logbook awards badges like Greaser (land so softly nobody noticed), Go Around (wave off an unsafe landing), Night Owl (play between midnight and 4 a.m.) and Touch and Go (play the same game three times in a day). See how many you can collect.

Bring the arcade to your hangar, club or EAA chapter

Host a Ground School Showdown quiz night

GROUND SCHOOL SHOWDOWN is a live quiz for a room full of pilots. It works as an icebreaker before an EAA chapter meeting, at a flight school safety night, or at a club cookout when the weather won't cooperate.

  1. Put the Showdown page on a projector or TV and tap HOST A GAME.
  2. Pick the categories, the number of questions and the timer. Topics include regulations, weather, airspace, aerodynamics, navigation, radio and ATC, ADS-B and avionics, plus some fun trivia.
  3. Players open the same page on their phones and enter the four-letter room code and a nickname, or simply scan the QR code on the screen.
  4. Each question and its four answers appear on the big screen. Players tap the matching colored shape on their phone.
  5. A right answer is worth 500 points, plus up to 500 more for speed, and streaks add a bonus. The top five show after every question, and the winner gets fireworks.

No crowd tonight? Practice solo: ten questions against the clock.

Start a Hangar League

Hangar Leagues turn the daily challenges into a weekly competition for your club, chapter or group of friends.

  1. Open Hangar Leagues, choose Start a league, and share the league code with your members.
  2. Members choose Join a league and enter the code. Each player can be in up to three leagues.
  3. That's it. Everyone's daily challenge results post to the league automatically, under the name they use in the games.
  4. Each game, each day awards points: 10 for first, 8 for second, 6 for third, 5 for fourth, then 4, 3 and 2, and 1 point for anyone else who played. Showing up counts.

Post the weekly standings in your newsletter or on the hangar whiteboard, and give the winner first pick of the donuts.

More ideas for a hangar day

  • Young Eagles or open-house waiting line: put SQUAWK 1200 or CLEARED TO LAND on a laptop for kids waiting for their flight.
  • Student pilot study group: run METAR RUSH, AIRSPACE BUILDER and DAILY GROUND SCHOOL as a warm-up before the real books come out.
  • Daily challenge on the hangar TV: play the DAILY CROSS-COUNTRY together. Everyone flies the same seeded course, so the scores are directly comparable.
  • Send a challenge link: many games can share a link that dares a friend to beat your run (and earns them the Challenge Accepted badge).

Keep your streak: the pilot logbook

Every run in every game goes into your Pilot Logbook. You earn XP, climb ranks from Student Pilot to Chief Pilot, and collect badges. Daily streaks work like currency: keep showing up. Spare fuel can save a streak when life gets in the way.

Your logbook lives on your own device, with nothing to sign up for. To move it to a new phone, export your logbook code and import it on the other device.

Install it like an app

The arcade works as an installable web app. On a phone, open stratux.com/games and choose Add to Home Screen (iPhone: Share → Add to Home Screen; Android: the browser menu → Install app or Add to Home screen). It then opens in its own window like any other app, ready for your next weather hold.

Tell us your score

We'd love to see what you and your club do with the arcade:

  • Share your SQUAWKLE grid or your best SQUAWK 1200 run in the Stratux Facebook group or on Discord.
  • Ran a Showdown night at your chapter? Post a photo and tell us which question stumped the room.
  • Have an idea for a game, or a question for the Showdown pool? Tell us on Discord or email [email protected].

And if the games make you curious about the real thing, Stratux is a free, open-source ADS-B receiver that puts weather and traffic on your EFB. Learn how ADS-B works, find the ground stations near you, or get a Stratux.

Play the Stratux Arcade

Frequently asked questions

Are the games really free? Yes. All 44 run in your browser, with no sign-up, no download and nothing to buy.

Is there an aviation Wordle? Yes: SQUAWKLE, a new five-letter pilot word every day.

How do I run an aviation quiz night? Open Ground School Showdown on a projector and tap Host a Game. Players join on their phones with the room code or QR code.

How do Hangar Leagues work? Start a league, share the code, and members' daily results post automatically. Points run from 10 for first place down to 1 for anyone who played, and the table resets weekly.

Where are my scores saved? On your own device. Export your logbook code to move it to another phone.